Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Russia reaches its climax as his Grande Armee enters Moscow–only to find the enemy capital deserted and burning, set afire by the few Russians who remained.

1814

Francis Scott Key writes the words to the “Star Spangled Banner” as he waits aboard a British launch in the Chesapeake Bay for the outcome of the British assault on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.

1847

U.S. forces under Gen. Winfield Scott capture Mexico City, virtually bringing the two-year Mexican War to a close.

1853

The Allies land at Eupatoria on the west coast of Crimea.

1862

At the battles of South Mountain and Crampton’s Gap, Maryland Union troops smash into the Confederates as they close in on what will become the Antietam battleground.

1901

Vice President Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as the 26th President of the United States upon the death of William McKinley, who was shot eight days earlier.

1911

Russian Premier Piotr Stolypin is mortally wounded in an assassination attempt at the Kiev opera house.

1943

German troops abandon the Salerno front in Italy..

1960

Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia form OPEC.

1966

Operation Attleboro, designed as a training exercise for American troops, becomes a month-long struggle against the Viet Cong.

1975

Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton becomes the first native-born American saint in the Roman Catholic Church.

1979

Nur Muhammad Taraki, president and former prime minister of Afghanistan, is assassinated in a coup in which prime minister Hafizullah Amin seizes power.

1982

Bachir Gemayel, president-elect of Lebanon, is killed along with 26 others in a bomb blast in Beirut.

1984

Joe Kittinger, a former USAF fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, becomes the first person to pilot a gas balloon solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

1994

Major League Baseball players strike over a salary cap and other proposed changes, forcing the cancellation of the entire postseason and the World Series.

2007

Northern Rock Bank suffers the UK’s first bank run in 150 years.

Born on September 14

1769

Baron Freidrich von Humbolt, German naturalist and explorer who made the first isothermic and isobaric maps.

1849

Ivan Pavlov, Russian physiologist who studied dogs’ responsiveness.

1860

Hamlin Garland, author who wrote about the Midwest in novles such as A Son of the Middle Border and The Book of the American Indian.

1864

Lord Robert Cecil, one of the founders of the League of Nations and its president from 1923 to 1945.

Amy Winehouse, singer-songwriter; her five Grammy wins (out of six nominations) for her Back to Black album (2006) tied the existing record for most wins by a female artist in a single night; won Brit Award for Best British Female Artist (2007).